


Expiration Date

by damnneovelvet



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Bottom Mark Lee (NCT), Exhibitionism, Explicit Sexual Content, Friendship, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Non-Linear Narrative, Top Suh Youngho | Johnny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:00:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25880977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnneovelvet/pseuds/damnneovelvet
Summary: Johnny can't look at Mark's wrist from this angle—only the flush of his face, the sweat on his forehead, plush lips leaving Johnny feeling so hot he could burst—but it doesn't matter. He glances at his own wrist again. Glowing, his expiration date stares back at him.
Relationships: Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten & Suh Youngho | Johnny, Mark Lee/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 28
Kudos: 113





	Expiration Date

**Author's Note:**

  * For [romulus_adhara](https://archiveofourown.org/users/romulus_adhara/gifts).



> This came out of nowhere, which is why she was born this quickly and I wonder if I could do her any justice.
> 
> For Alex because she fell in love with purple lipstick Mark. Thanks to June for agreeing to go over this.
> 
> tw : allusions to death, alcohol
> 
> [ pinterest board ](https://pin.it/4lezLQi)
> 
> [ the playlist Alex made for this ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3E5934hGbXHihzXJpLoq8M?si=1iPas7C0RhyBcZDJ3MhydQ)

>>>

For a second, everything goes dark. Johnny's back hits cheap plastic, palms flattening against it. Cool air finds the drying patches of saliva between his hip and thigh, his jeans fall a little lower and a suffocating lemon scent fills his lungs. 

Here, outside a freshly cleaned bathroom in a club with no address listed on any map, he's living a moment eerily similar to the scenes he plays on repeat every night with a hand crawling down his pants. It's insane. There's no way any of this is real but there isn't enough coherence left in Johnny to understand anything beyond the heat of the mouth on his cock. At the back of his mind, he worries if someone will walk into the corridor but the thought spurs him on to bury his hands in Mark's hair.

Mark's lips leave behind traces of glittering violet against the throbbing red of Johnny's dick. He continues to suckle at the tip—lapping up precum as it dribbles through the opening. Johnny's head hits the door as he gasps, wetly with Mark's name embedded in every breath, eyes unfocused. The flooding neon lights paint his skin blue and heat pools at his temples as he looks at the hair bunched within his fingers. 

One of Mark's hands holds onto the base of his dick loosely, rubbing slowly and fingers stretching out to tease Johnny's balls every few seconds. His other hand remains twisted in the cloth pooling at Johnny's knees, nails digging into the leather of his hanging belt.

Instinctively, Johnny pushes deeper past Mark's lips. It's a welcome intrusion and a string of spit drips down Mark's chin, shining electric before disappearing from Johnny's sight. 

His eyes search for Mark's eyes—wide, round, unreal—but they fall on his own wrist instead. Half-obscured by unruly strands of hair, a series of purple digits flicker unsteadily. The flashing sobers him enough to hear Mark moaning around the girth holding him open. He thrusts once, twice, heart thundering at the feeling of Mark's constricting throat trying to swallow him whole. 

Mark's eyes remain closed. Tight. Johnny brings a finger to rub at a small tear and the fingertip comes away shimmery and dark, there's eyeshadow smudged at the corner of Mark's eye.

Johnny can't look at Mark's wrist from this angle—only the flush of his face, the sweat on his forehead, plush lips leaving Johnny feeling so hot he could burst—but it doesn't matter. He glances at his own wrist again. Glowing, his expiration date stares back at him.

<<<

It's on an empty evening and an equally empty stomach that Ten decides to spend some time rooted in front of Johnny's sixty-five inch flat screen. 

There's a drama on air that both of them have been following. It's the usual, a kind woman with humble beginnings and an expiration date two months from the pilot episode. 

"It's unrealistic," Ten says, legs propped on Johnny's lap, "Why can she see her own timer? It's just unrealistic." It is, Johnny can't disagree, he also knows people like seeing things that are elusive, people crave the unknown but Johnny is someone who stands in the middle of a maelstrom.

"I can see mine," Johnny pokes at Ten's thigh. He's lost weight, Johnny notices, dark circles growing under his eyes. Jawline sharper. He looks malaise but Johnny has no idea why.

"Because it's glitching." 

About six months ago, Johnny couldn't see his own timer, wrist empty and clean, only veins and the remains of a heartbreak rushing to singe through his existence. He's been able to see Ten's expiration date since they were in eleventh grade, and there's no particular reason why. Ten's been able to see his for even longer. It's just a reminder. 

A reminder that everyone's expiration dates are different. They don't work the same way. 

"It keeps blinking in and out. I think it'll be fine."

"When?"

"Soon."

They sit in silence, the lady on-screen struggling to keep up with all the verbal abuse hurled at her for being kind. It's foolish, he thinks, but kind people—he remembers strong cheekbones, then laying a kiss on a mole on a soft neck—are often trampled over by the insecurities of others. Humans can be so overbearing. 

"Does Taeyong still own that weird purple car of his?" Johnny asks, eyes focused on the screen. They burn. 

"Yeah, do you wanna take her out for a ride? I think he'll let me drop by and borrow her."

"I like how fast she can go," Johnny sighs, blinking away the discomfort and looking back and forth between his and Ten's wrists. Both of them are running on low numbers, and there's not much to do when your expiration date is this close. 

Neither of them know what they're about to lose and if it's their lives… What's the point of dying if they can't do it in style?

>>>

"Would you fuck me against the wall, Johnny?" Mark asks, panting heavily as Johnny palms his dick. 

Mark is still in his pants but the front of his underwear is soaked. Johnny rubs along the outline carefully, head still dizzy. He isn't drunk enough for this and yet he's been pushed into a small club bathroom, the sink counter digging into the small of his back.

"Is that what you want?" Johnny asks, leaning forward to tongue at the blossoming bruise near Mark's ear. 

"Yes," Mark pants, "God, yes, rail me good. Just like old times." 

Johnny pulls up Mark's shirt, thumbing at the hard buds of his nipples. He takes one of them in his mouth, tongue rolling and wetting it as Mark lets out a loud guttural sound, fingers twisting in Johnny's hair painfully.

"Do you have any lube?" Johnny asks, kissing up the column of Mark's throat. He pauses to nip at the skin right above his jugular, the pulse beating against his lips a stark reminder that Mark really is here. Dynamic.

"No, but you say that as if we've never gone raw before," Mark gushes, angling his head away to give Johnny more skin to devour. 

"Never like this, Mark. I'm not going to hurt you—"

"Johnny, just look around. Didn't you see the number of people having sex on the dance floor? There must be something here." He says. Mark eyes droop further with every moment he spends drooling at Johnny's arms. He caresses them with nimble fingers.

He drags his fingers across the span of Johnny's biceps, then hovers over his shoulders before trailing down and stopping to dig along his midriff.

"Okay," Johnny agrees, "Okay, wash up and we'll find lube and a condom."

<<<

The first time Johnny met Mark was at the younger's freshman orientation. They'd clicked immediately even though Mark had been reserved and unwilling to speak more than two sentences at a time.

They bonded over being foreigners. It's a delight when you find people who can speak all the languages that you do and Johnny relished it, believing that Mark found comfort in him. Quick meetings in corridors turned to attending clubs together, which became impromptu outings for the bleakest of things—just the two of them.

And beneath all their interactions, Johnny smirked with pride, he noticed the slow trace of Mark's fingers against his tattoos. Mark would lean in close, hands clutching Johnny arms, and he would refuse to break eye contact no matter how much blood rushed to his head. Johnny didn't do partners younger than him but Mark was different. He was out there for it and ready to fall into Johnny's orbit at the drop of a hat. The sexual tension had always been there and Johnny never learned to refuse sex with a hot person. 

One night of pounding Mark into the mattress of Johnny's bed turned to two, which kept repeating because Mark is insatiable. One round then another. One kink then another. 

Johnny hadn't expected things to heat up this fast. The fourth night in a row and Mark lay in his sheets as if he had never moved ever since the first time this happened. It was easy to become accustomed to his presence, during the day when they were walking together, a few inches of distance between them, then in the afternoons when Johnny would drop other dick appointments to make out with Mark in hidden alcoves. 

*

"What are we doing?" Mark asks after he gives up on walking for the evening after a particularly strenuous weekend. His skin glows under Johnny's bedroom lights, the muscles of his back defined in a way that made the knobs of his spine pop out. Johnny shifts closer to run a finger across them, then mouths at the back of his neck.

Mark twitches before leaning back on his arms, "You aren't answering me," he says, voice low and raspy.

"We're doing what we wanted to do, have sex, no strings." 

"It was so fast wasn't it, how we got involved, and now you're no longer a student," Mark chuckles as Johnny presses into his shoulders. 

"Does it matter, it's been a few months now but you can always find someone at uni if you have to, especially with my work hours," Johnny answers, impatient as he sees red climbing up Mark's ears.

"No, no it's alright, I've gotten so used to you I don't think anyone else will be able to satisfy me now." Johnny laughs it off, pulling Mark onto him. 

Only if he knew back then that things would go wrong fast as well.

>>>

Mark quips at Johnny for keeping hygiene even in a place where a hundred people fuck without inhibitions every day. Johnny doesn't say anything in return, his gaze fixed on the way Mark's lips form words. He's missed him so much he could pluck a thousand four-leaf clovers just to keep Mark speaking. 

Johnny knows Mark is assertive when he's horny, also vivacious and impatient. Which is why he isn't taken aback when he's pushed onto a couch and Mark climbs onto his lap immediately. 

He's sure they're attracting attention, a few heads turn to look, but Mark also has exhibitionistic tendencies and what is Johnny going to say? No?

There had barely been any chances in the year they spent together to showcase themselves and their chemistry, he fits well with Mark, they have unparalleled synergy almost as if they were meant to meet in the bigger picture of things, Mark fits into places Johnny had never imagined would be filled and they're tenacious together.

Before he can register what music is blasting in the background and how many people must have fucked right where he's sitting, Mark's lips crash against his. It's slow, just lips pressing against lips for a second. Johnny grabs onto Mark's waist but Mark is rummaging around and hid crotch rubs right against Johnny's sending up sparks of heat. 

Johnny feels an instinct awaken within him, something he's always felt around Mark, to turn him into a babbling mess. 

He thrusts up, Mark's mouth falling open, the sheen of sweat on his neck shining red under the lights. Johnny dips his tongue into the jugular notch, lapping up greedily and licking his way to Mark's mouth, probing at his lips messily. 

"Johnny—" Mark squeaks, wrapping his arms around Johnny's shoulders and swirling his tongue around. 

Within a minute, both of their shirts are thrown onto the couch, heated skin rubbing against heated skin. Johnny pushes back his hair, dipping down to leave hickeys on the expanse of Mark's torso. In the haze, Mark opens both their pants and slides his hand past the waistband of his underwear.

<<<

Situations like these, where Johnny wakes up to cum drying on his bedsheets and Mark's cheek squished against his chest, come with a motherfucking truckload of uncertainty. 

They aren't lovers (but are they any less?), they aren't friends (Johnny can't remember Mark's class schedule on a good day) but they're everything and nothing at the same time and it pinches Johnny's heart just a little more than it should. The boundaries of all social connections seem to blur like speeding headlights when it comes to Mark Lee. 

His heart flutters even when they're not kissing or going at it, which is the last straw because Johnny decidedly doesn't do anything more than friends with benefits. 

The first mistake he made was sleeping with Mark more than twice, the second mistake was talking to Mark outside of their escapades in bed and the third. The third mistake was to let all these thoughts simmer in his head. Perhaps his growing inability to detach from Mark only hinders him from achieving what he wants (which is foolish because Johnny has no dreams to call his own anymore, not after he begrudgingly left home years ago to run from the waning numbers on his mother's wrist).

Mark smiles brightly. His laughter is what gets Johnny through the day. His eyes sparkle in sunshine, looking at Johnny with awe and cloying adoration—it cuts off the connection between his head and his dick, the need to wrap Mark in a warm hug growing above the need to see him writhing in ecstasy.

Relationships like these are cute, soft, nostalgic yet novel but they are, most importantly, volatile.

It is questionable how they fall into step with each other, coffee in their hands and their deepest desires on their tongues. Sharing a bed shouldn't mean sharing meals, or sharing perfumes and smelling like each other wherever they go. The taste of Mark's skin is the first thing Johnny thinks of when he rolls out of bed alone on colder days.

They're following a well-mapped trajectory—one that ensures a happily ever after—but there's one complication that grates Johnny's conscience every waking moment once Mark starts talking about couples and exclusivity.

Mark's expiration date is significantly shorter than his own.

>>>

"Mark," Johnny starts, voice hoarse and neck littered in red, "Shouldn't we—"

Mark shushes him, pulling him into a kiss filled with more tongue than lip. They suck each other in, heads blank and movements making them spin.

"We can talk later," Mark tears open a small packet of lube with his teeth, one hand steadily trailing over Johnny's abs.

"For real?" Johnny implores.

"We have very little time, let's make the most of it." Mark slips off his jeans and takes Johnny's dick in his hand, lube slicking up as the fingers of his under hand push into himself. 

Almost everyone in the room is looking at them, even those who had been deeply gone in their own escapades, because who can tear their eyes off of a man fingering himself earnestly while looking at his lover with smouldering eyes? 

<<<

"You were an asshole, Johnny." Ten says, swirling wine in his long-stemmed glass, leaning against the window frame. From here, he can see the Han river, shimmering under city lights, as overpowering as always. 

"I agree with you on that one," Johnny answers, lying face down on the couch, head buzzing lightly with days worth of alcohol running through his blood. He's certain that the next morning will be a nightmare. His head cries in agony. 

"But I love you and that's why you're in my house. Taeyong would force you into a shower and sober you in minutes," Ten chuckles.

Johnny grunts in approval, his voice muffled through the leather. It's uncomfortable. Sweat gathers where his skin touches the material but he doesn't want to move. Every time he looks around he finds pieces of domesticity etched into the atmosphere of Ten's home and it makes his chest ache with tangled emotions he decided to throw away instead of resolving. Except he failed at throwing them away and now the knots are too tight to undo.

"I've said this before, but now I feel it even more. The happier you are, the faster you lose everything, and the sadder you are, the more you never gain anything." 

Johnny turns his head to look at his best friend. This is his best friend, they've known each other since they were struggling teenagers and now they're part of the corporate slave machinery and he doesn't understand a word Ten's saying.

"Explain."

"There's nothing to explain," Ten says. Floors below them, cars zoom past, people laugh, dogs bark. The world is as normal as it can be and nobody cares about the sorrows of two drunk men hiding behind curtains.

"Why do you always say complicated stuff when I'm drunk? Save them for later, I like talking to you about deep shit." Johnny mumbles but Ten manages to catch the gist of it. 

He pushes off the frame and goes to turn off the lights. In the darkness, Johnny's timer glows like a danger sign, like in survival horror games where the safe room has been left far behind and you're stuck in a battle where you can't save. If you lose, you go right back to the beginning. Johnny wonders if life has a redo button hiding somewhere between the red and blue dots littering his vision.

"You're not drunk enough if you know you're drunk," Ten rebukes lightly.

"And you're too not-drunk."

"Let me cope, my heartbreak is fresher than yours douchebag." Perhaps even tight-knit domesticity fails in the face of inevitable fate. 

>>>

Johnny thrusts up with all his energy, feeling pushed over the edge having come once already. The music pulses through him and Mark's expression—open and passionate—makes everything worth it.

Mark rides Johnny—hips falling down in a steady rhythm, speeding till neither of them can breath and Mark is at the verge of crying because how deep Johnny reaches, his prostate feeling the drag of the cock drilling in and out—till he tips the scale over and Johnny takes over, fucking into him with a ferocity he thought he'd lost. 

Mark's ass has always been his favourite, so hungry and so plush, he gropes it as he pushes in and Mark screams unabashed, mixing into the air filled with musky scent of sex. 

Johnny doesn't notice then, too far gone to feel anything other than the other's mesmerising proximity but Mark's timer isn't visible anymore.

<<<

Johnny's expiration date keeps flickering like an unsteady flame on a short candle, about to die out any minute because there's no more wax to support it.

When the flickering has slowed down enough, which takes days of panicking and clinging to Ten and Taeyong for dear life, Johnny tries the internet again. It's risky, especially since talking about the countdowns is strictly illegal in many countries and a taboo in others. Even here, miles away from Chicago, nobody talks about how much they have left openly. 

It's the number one cause of misunderstandings. It's demeaning. They say that once long ago, nobody knew how much time they had left, that one day the balance of this world shifted and toppled into this new normal, where everybody lives with secrets, as if hot wax were poured over their lips and sealed to never be opened.

It takes him thirty minutes of following links and taking deep breaths to find something. 

It's a club about forty minutes from his apartment, conveniently called 'expiration date', and there's about thirty people on the thread saying they found what they needed there after their natural clocks malfunctioned. It seems like an underground society, someplace where people find what they seek. Nobody has written about what happened. The replies asking for recollections all go unnoticed. 

One reply links the club's contact and Johnny, fearless, decides that if his life is going to be an anomaly, he might as well believe others before asking them to believe him. 

The club shows up on a quick search but there's no correct map location. There's only one number that seems to be dead and a single line that the owner wrote in its description. Johnny doesn't know much, but he bets on the place being an occult group's gathering (or a scene filled with drugs and orgies. He wouldn't mind the latter if pulled his thoughts from straying back to the one person he's been struggling to forget). It's enticing nonetheless, the way the windows glow violet—it seems to be a pattern—in the only picture uploaded alongside.

'Let the allure of the supernatural find you and fix it.'

>>>

"Deeper!" Mark exclaims, cheek smudged against the cool tiles covering the wall. His breath fogs up against the surface and his cock leaks heavily with the stimulation. Johnny pulls him back by the hips and bites at the curve of his shoulder, one hand rubbing circles into his stomach.

"I'm not gonna last long," Johnny says, punctuating every other word with a strong push ahead. Mark's legs tremble visibly. He's already orgasmed thrice tonight and this one's gonna be dry, Johnny knows by experience, and Mark won't be able to hold himself up for a while.

As soon as they both come off their high, they slug around to pull on their clothes, jackets abandoned somewhere they can't bother to look. 

Mark leans against Johnny, the top of his hair tickling Johnny's chin. 

"I can't go anymore, no more," he heaves. His chest continues rising and falling with deep breaths, throats burning and hips aching. Johnny pulls him closer, mouthing fleeting kisses onto his forehead. They bicker a little, worthless words thrown around just to lighten up their mood, but to Johnny, they mean everything.

<<<

If life were a choose-your-own adventure book, Johnny knows he must have fucked up somewhere within the first three pages. 

It's barely five when he wakes up, sweat rolling down his temples. He's achingly hard because of course, he had to have a wet dream this early in the morning. It doesn't help that even minutes after waking up, he can still hear Mark moaning in his ears, biting unbelievably bright purple bruises, his scent clinging to the sheets beneath them. Johnny rolls around, wondering if it's possible to find traces of Mark's sweet scent on his pillowcase even though it's been months since Johnny last heard from him.

There are days he can't recall anything other than the rose-tinted moments they shared and then Mark's body—hard planes of built muscle and a narrow waist twisting—so he's left with no choice but to fill all the gaps in between with fabrications.

As he loosens the drawstrings of his sweatpants, dick throbbing against his thigh, and looks down, a flash of colour catches his eye. It's digits, clean and square, ticking down by the second. But they're also violet—neon like lights in rundown clubs. 

He startles and sits up, blanket slipping off the bed. What the fuck. His numbers. His own expiration date visible to him, counting down to a handful of days—and then it stops. The pause has him confound because this isn't how any of the countdowns around him have behaved, even when he knows exceptions exist. He stares at his wrist, unbelieving, when the numbers start to flicker violently, refusing to slow down. Johnny gapes in shock.

He immediately picks up his phone and searches the internet for anything, anything at all. He doesn't know who to call—he thinks of Mark, who has been missing for months now—and starts scrolling through whatever he can find, heartbeat picking up at the possibility of his hand exploding.

Is that what was going to happen? He would lose an arm and bleed to death because of his mistakes? Maybe he should because he deserves it but maybe he shouldn't, because this world is dirty as it is.

He could tell Ten, and he could ask Taeyong. Going to a doctor is out of the question because if this is rare and someone else can see it, he doesn't want to live the last moments of his life begging for death, being a laboratory guinea pig.

*

_To: Tennie_

_Fuck_

_I can see my clock_

_It's frozen_

_what the fuck_

_✓_

_To : Johnny °_°_

_holy fuck when_

_where how_

_✓_

_To : Tennie_

_On my right arm_

_as soon as I woke up_

_✓_

_it was counting down but then it just_

_stopped_ _(1)_

Ten doesn't have the heart to tell him that's the wrong wrist.

>>>

"Do you wanna try again?" Johnny asks, fully clothed now and nursing a glass of beer in his hands. He isn't a beer kind of person, but it's something Mark drinks and right now, he would willingly lie down on the floor and become Mark's personal carpet.

Mark laughs, loud and beautiful, and Johnny curses the music around them for interfering with it.

"There never was anything in the first place though," he says. It hits right where the wound has been trying to heal.

"So let's make something?" Johnny tries, hopeful.

Mark's face is still flushed, hours of intimacy having worn down most of his tough persona. He looks softer than he's ever before, almost as if he would vanish if Johnny as much as touched his hand. Is this what he looked like after sex before?

"Are you sure?"

"I am."

"No looking back?"

"Not at all," Johnny assures him, dragging himself closer to where Mark sits, "This time I'll be yours to deal with. It's not a great offer but it's all I can give you." 

Mark seems to consider it for a moment. His lips pull into a thin line as he looks far into the distance, at the crowd of late night dancers. A little ways from them, another couple (or maybe someone like them) is trying to break through the couch. Johnny wonders if Mark's done this before with others, taken them here and swallowed their entirety with a single glance. It makes him burn with envy.

"Sure," Mark shrugs, "We can try. We can put behind everything and go at it afresh." Then he breaks into a radiant smile and stands up, offering his hand to Johnny, "Let's go, no looking back."

<<<

"Will you be my boyfriend, John?" Mark whispers late one night. Living on the seventh floor means there's no streetlights tall enough to shine through his windows. Johnny is glad there's no light, looking at Mark's face would make him cave. He turns over and sits up, back towards Mark, heart lurching towards the frozen north where it can stop beating once and for all.

Johnny does what any generic asshole would do. He peels off the bandaid keeping his heart together and places it on his crumbling resolve.

"I thought we were just fooling around."

"I mean, yeah, we started out like that," And in his mind, Johnny can see the blush high on Mark's cheeks, fingers tracing patterns into the cotton sheets, "But I like you. A lot and I feel—"

The glaring image of a countdown dated eight months away drowns his voice.

"I like you, Mark, but as a friend—" A lie, "—I think we should stop this. Besides, I've been sleeping with other people, I can't leave them hanging for a relationship that won't work out." A filthy lie. 

A paradigm shift.

Mark picks up his clothes silently, then shuts the door softly as he leaves and doesn't come back. He doesn't show up at any of the places they frequented, his classmates say he comes and goes like the wind which is alright. This is what Johnny wanted. It's his fault for loving someone who was bound to leave. Mark must have known as well, there's no way his closest friends wouldn't tell him that his time was fucking away fast. In hindsight, it was cruel of Mark to make him fall in love.

Mark's socks are left in his laundry basket for days and when they're finally washed, Johnny tucks them carefully into a drawer he doesn't open.

He follows the calendar with a dull nonchalance and four months later, as Mark's expiration date creeps closer and his mother's hits zero, he decides to call his father. He may have been a coward and refused to live in anguish but he's not cruel enough to forget where his roots lie. His father answers the phone, a little tearful but that's because Johnny finally decided to call back. 

His mother is absolutely fine, her timer reset two years ago when they adopted a little girl. They had the timer all wrong. The media, the news, the people they knew. Everyone's expiration date is different because they value different things, because they define the meaning of life diff—

The phone slips from Johnny's hand, the screen cracking. All evening he frantically dials a number he should have deleted.

Mark never answers the phone.

Belatedly, he finds out that Mark is missing.

>>>

When Johnny climbs down the steps, the neon glow fading into orange from the streetlights outside, his palm feels warm. He tugs at Mark's palm and receives a gentle squeeze in return.

This night may have been a wild coincidence. When he spotted Mark—violet lipgloss, shadowy eyes, glitter stuck to the apples of his cheekbones—he thought this was all an illusion. Finding Mark in a dubious club is a chance event with a probability lesser than Johnny becoming a marine biologist overnight but he'll take it. They have a thousand things to sort through, they will have to fall in love all over again but this time Johnny is ready to commit to this. 

It's surprising how all it took was one night with the love of his life to dispel the dark clouds that have been raining over his head ever since Mark left.

The staircase narrows down, barely allowing just one person through and Mark pushes him ahead, fingers splayed over the fabric of his jacket.

"Just keep walking, straight ahead, let's not turn back? We mustn't, I think." He whispers, odd, but Johnny thinks there is a lot to unpack in those words. But they have all night, all morning, and if Mark allows, all eternity to dissect them.

"I wonder if Ten is still waiting outside," Johnny murmurs. It must have been hours since he left the other by himself and he reaches for his phone, but it's not there. "Mark, I think I dropped my phone," he says, almost turning around but Mark only strengthens his grasp and moves closer.

"I'll look for it, you keep walking."

"What—" Johnny whips around, frantic but finds Mark crouching on the floor. He finds Johnny's phone and hands it over with a small smile. Johnny takes it with a small smile of his own, feeling like an uncanny reflection, but he's certain he never heard it hit the floor.

Within the few seconds it takes for him to descend down the last step, Mark's hold on his back vanishes and their fingers intertwine—hot and clammy—and Mark's breath tickles against his nape. 

"I love you, you know that, right?"

"I do, and I love you too, even if I never said it before." Johnny whispers back, eyes closed and relishing the unexpected warmth that floods him. Before he can turn to look at Mark, the backlights of the car blink and Johnny tells Mark to get into the car. He hears a faint okay and bites his lip to suppress his smile. This cannot be happening but it is. 

He opens the door, locking eyes with Mark for a second before sliding into the backseat. He sees Mark sit next to him, head lowered and hand outstretched, fingers tapping. Johnny covers it with his own hand.

"John! What the fuck, you scared me!" Ten exclaims, "You're back so soon?" 

"What do you mean so soon?" He chuckles, the fatigue of fucking Mark for hours finally catching up with him. His legs burn and his back hurts. But there's happiness swirling in the deepest hollows of his chest and Ten's sarcasm does nothing but add to it.

"You were barely there for what, fifteen, twenty minutes? I was just going to head back, Taeyong called." 

"Wait, what? Don't you wanna meet Ma—"

Johnny looks to his side with a wide grin. His face freezes. His outstretched wrist displays solid numbers and it fades slower than he's ever seen it. Within a few seconds, it's gone, almost as if there had never been any numbers ticking on his wrist, stealing sleep and threatening to take away his humanity. 

Beyond that, there's an empty seat, no warm skin under his own hand but the cool metal of his phone, just empty space, old leather and a window that hasn't been cleaned in months. 

Mark's not there anymore. 

**Author's Note:**

> jdjsjjshdhdndndjxjdjdjdjd 
> 
> I have no idea what this is. She wrote herself and is very cliché heavy but I guess all of us need one of these once in a while. If you guessed which mythology is referred to, you get a cookie :D
> 
> Also I shortened the planned sex scenes because I have no idea how to write convincing smut, my sexuality makes it difficult to know what being aroused is like so I winged it based on fiction I've read. 
> 
> Thank you for reading :D 
> 
> \---
> 
> Lower your shoulders and Unclench your Jaw:
> 
> [Keep check of your Mental Health ](https://checkpoint.carrd.co/#)  
> [ChilledCow Lo-Fi](https://youtu.be/DWcJFNfaw9c)  
> \---  
> [ Keep in check with the pandemic ](https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019)


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